Biden takes aim at 'Vouchercare'

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Wading into Paul Ryan territory, Vice President Joe Biden delivered a blistering critique of the GOP vice presidential nominee’s Medicare proposal and warned that the Republican ticket would turn the health care system for seniors into “Vouchercare.”

As he campaigned in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin on Sunday, Biden hammered Ryan and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for endorsing a Medicare proposal that would give seniors subsidies to purchase private health care plans. Biden, echoing a common Democratic attack, accused Republicans of wanting to “end the guarantee of Medicare.”

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“Ladies and gentleman, it’s just that simple: We are for Medicare; they are for Vouchercare,” Biden told the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of about 1,000 at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay.

In his criticisms, Biden evoked his mother, Catherine, who campaigned with him in 2008 and died two years later at the age of 92. (At Sunday’s rally, Biden misspoke, saying his mother died at 93.)

“My mom was a smart woman,” he said. “But, my mom, I can’t picture handing her a voucher at age 80 and saying — you go out in the insurance market and you figure out what’s best for you.”

By demanding a repeal of the health care law — the Obama administration’s top domestic priority achievement — Republicans would put insurance companies “back in charge of our health care,” bring steep cuts to Medicaid and drop millions of young adults from their parents’ health care plans, Biden said.

“Folks, this is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said. “No, for real. This is a different breed of cat. This is not even Mitt Romney’s father’s Republican Party.”

During the roughly 25-minute speech, Biden also rattled off a list of criticisms of the Republican Party on issues ranging from taxes to the deficit to foreign policy, particularly lambasting the GOP for demanding “massive” tax cuts for the rich.

“Folks, we’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends,” Biden said. “It ends in lost jobs, stagnant wages, watching the equity in your home evaporate, watching your retirement account decimate. It ends in a catastrophe for the middle class. It ends in the great recession of 2008.”

At the Republican convention, “they talked about the state of the nation and all these terrible things that happened in 2009,” Biden added. “How do they think they got there? No, no really. Do they think we have amnesia?”